Lillian arrived at the table as the pooka
leaned over the box. He tilted his head and one bright yellow eye fixed on the
mystery item within the toolbox. His lips curled back from his teeth and after
a quick sniff, he jerked his muzzle away with a snort and a shake of his head.
Glossy black skin shivered like he was being attacked by invisible flies.
Unable to stand the mystery, Lillian leaned
forward until she could see inside the box.
The knife lay within.
The knife which had tried to kill her
gargoyle. “You,” she hissed and snatched it out of the box. Her grandmother
shouted and Whitethorn made a motion to knock it out of her hand, but the
gargoyle blocked them with his wings. She glanced first at Gregory and then
back at the knife. She turned it over in her hand. A dark, reddish-brown stain
soiled the smooth mirror surface of the blade. Gregory’s blood.
Rage tensed her muscles and her pulse
pounded in her ears. This was the thing that had tried to take her gargoyle’s
life. Power bubbled up from within Lillian, fed by the wrath until it simmered
in her blood, lending her muscles strength. She laid the knife flat on the
table and pressed her hand over it until the table creaked with the strain. She
held the power back, letting it build. When it spiked, she channeled it upon
the knife.
Destroy it
, she whispered to her magic.
A bright flash like a bolt of lightning
blinded her. Sparks danced across her vision. She blinked. When her sight
returned, she looked down where the blade had been.
It still lay there. Perfect. Untouched by
her magic.
A growl tore up from her chest.
The amount of power she’d summoned should
have reduced the knife to ash. Yet there it lay. She leaned closer. No, it was
not completely untouched; the blood was gone.
Without the visual reminder of Gregory’s
near-mortal injury, Lillian’s turbulent power and consuming wrath slowly
dissipated. Taking measured deep breaths, she calmed, her heart resuming a
normal pace.
With her power’s abandonment, she collapsed
back onto a chair and rubbed at her temples to ease the tension. Weakness
descended upon her body a layer at a time as the seconds flew past. A clawed
hand settled on her shoulder. Before she could look up at Gregory, he began to
share power with her.
“I’m sorry. I know I promised I wouldn’t
use my power, but I wanted that
thing
destroyed for what it did to you.”
Lillian rested her cheek against Gregory’s arm.
“Shh . . . I know. Rest,”
he whispered into her mind through his touch.
“Well, that was fascinating,” Greenborrow
stated. The leshii leaned closer and waved his hand over the blade.
A good six inches of empty air stretched
between the steel blade and his flesh. And Lillian could still feel how the
blade sucked the magic through the air, weakening the old fae.
Greenborrow retracted his hand.
“Interesting how a lowly dryad can hold a demon blade and not have it consume
her, and yet all I have to do is stand close enough to the thing to feel it
draining me,” he said, his tone offhanded, like he was commenting on the
weather.
His remarks stirred the others at the table
out of their shock. Multiple conversations erupted at once. The hum of
discussion buzzed around the table for several chaotic minutes. Gregory flicked
his wings in annoyance, then issued a deep barking challenge in his own
language. The verbal debates dwindled to silence.
The sprite, Hyrand, was the first to gather
her courage. She inclined her head in Gregory’s direction. The gargoyle nodded.
Hyrand bowed her head in thanks, then
looked to the leshii. “Greenborrow, are you accusing Lillian of carrying
darkness in her soul?”
“Nothing so serious, my dear.” He glanced
at Gregory. “Just saying it’s interesting, is all.”
Hyrand didn’t seem convinced, and she
studied Lillian from under her lashes until Lillian became uncomfortable. The
sprite cleared her throat and continued, as if she chose her words with care.
“I would hear how you stopped this blade from destroying your gargoyle.”
“Gregory was injured by the vampire. It was
my fault the vampire got in a lucky shot. My magic reacted to save Gregory’s
life.”
“And the Riven, he just stood aside and let
you do this?”
“No, of course not. He was already dead by
the time I reached Gregory’s side.”
“Yet you said you distracted the gargoyle
and the Riven got close enough to stab him. You did not say Gregory killed it.
So, the gargoyle dropped before he killed the Riven?”
“Yes,” Lillian blurted before she could
stop and think.
“So what happened to it?”
“I don’t know, everything happened so fast.
It was blurry and dark. Gregory was injured. I panicked. I think I ran at the
vampire. I must have had a weapon with me because the next thing I knew, I was
at Gregory’s side and the vampire was dead.”
Greenborrow interrupted. “The vampire was
torn to shreds. Gutted. His heart missing and half his ribcage spread out
across the grass. Tell me, what kind of bladed weapon does that?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head, more to
deny the existence of a void in her own memories than in response to
Greenborrow’s question. Gregory leaned down and rested his chin against her
hair, saying in his silent way not to worry. It didn’t work. She trembled and
her hands shook like she’d been in a car accident. “Why does it matter? He was
evil, and now he’s dead.”
“Exactly. He’s dead. A dryad has no hope of
killing a vampire in a one-on-one fight. But if that dryad is something rarer
than her sisters, and she could draw magic directly from the Magic Realm, well
then—that is one sorry Riven.”
Silence thickened like fog on a cool autumn
morning.
“I have magic. I don’t really know anything
about it. Heck, I didn’t even know about it until a couple days ago. I
certainly don’t know how to use it. That I have magic is no secret. You all say
the gargoyle and I raised magic the night of the Hunt. So maybe I did use that
power to kill a vampire. So what?”
“But,” Greenborrow continued, “that’s my
point. We saw the remains of the Riven and felt the echo of the magic used to
do the damage. That was not dryad magic.”
Lillian fisted her hands against her
thighs. “First I am a human, and then I’m not a human. Next I’m a dryad and now
I’m not a dryad. What do you think I am?”
“I didn’t say you weren’t a dryad, only
that the magic used wasn’t dryad magic.”
“My gargoyle can string together better
sentences. Say what you mean or leave me alone.”
Gregory tightened his hold on her
shoulders. “The leshii is older than the others, and his memories run deeper.
He recognizes what we are, or has, as you would say, put two and two together.”
“Huh?”
Greenborrow clapped his hands together.
“Ah, I’m right.”
Gregory tightened his hold on Lillian’s
shoulders and his tail lashed, both signs he was faced with something he’d
rather leave untouched. Curious, Lillian craned her neck to meet his eyes.
“What is he talking about? Please tell me.”
“Very well. The time for secrets is past. I
have tested everyone here; there is no recent darkness on any of your souls.”
He paused and looked at the pooka and the banshee. “I will share a truth with
you.” Gregory’s voice rumbled over her head, darker and more sinister than
she’d ever recalled hearing. “If you want the truth, stay. But you shall never
repeat this to anyone outside of this meadow—you will not be able to for my
weaving will steal your words. After you’ve heard what I have to say, if any of
you try to harm my lady, I will steal more than your words, I will escort the
betrayer to the Spirit Realm myself. Stay or go, the choice is yours. I will
give you a few minutes to decide among yourselves.”
Even immortals could be shocked into
silence. Lillian didn’t take comfort in that fact, though. What was so terrible
about her past that Gregory would kill to keep it secret?
After his ultimatum, Gregory turned and
marched over to her tree. He merged with the shadows to await the Council’s
decision. When Lillian realized all the faces had switched from following the
gargoyle to staring at her, she lost her nerve and bolted after the gargoyle.
She probed the shadows until she caught
him, then locked her fingers around his arm. “What are you doing?”
“Giving the truth.”
“Like the stuff you told me last night
about our history?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t make me swear some kind of
death oath.”
“No.”
She clinched her jaw. His one word answers
were scaring her. “If we’re going to trust each other, you need to fill in some
details.”
“What I reveal will be more than I’ve told
you.” He sighed. “While I have not lied to you, I have not told you the full
truth. I hope you can forgive me.”
Gran came over to them before Lillian could
ask what he was talking about.
“The others are in agreement,” Gran said
with a glance over her shoulder at the other tense-faced individuals waiting at
the picnic tables. She frowned and Lillian wondered if Gran was annoyed that
Gregory hadn’t told her everything up front. Gran wasn’t the only one.
After a moment, Gran schooled her
expression and continued. “We agree to Gregory’s terms. If there is a secondary
danger to us beyond the Riven, then we need to know what it is and how to
protect ourselves.”
The gargoyle bowed his head in
acknowledgment and followed Gran back to the table. Lillian trailed after,
unsure if she wanted to hear what he’d kept secret.
Gregory didn’t sit. He seldom did, but now
he stood unmoving, like he’d grown roots. “As Greenborrow already guessed, I am
not
just
a gargoyle and Lillian is not
just
a dryad. She is the
Mother’s Sorceress and I am the Father’s Gargoyle Protector. We are the Avatars
of the Divine Ones, born to fulfill their purpose, to maintain the balance and
hunt down evil intent on upsetting that balance.” He paused, his head bowed,
like he fought for words.
The silence was so complete Lillian would have
heard a hummingbird if one flew across the glade at that moment. She stepped up
next to Gregory and placed her hand in his. He glanced sideways at her and
nodded his head. “Lillian does not remember who she is because I stole her
memories.”
Lillian’s mind blanked at his words, too
stunned to function. White noise filled her ears. It took her a few seconds to
realize it was the buzz of conversation she heard. The other fae creatures at
the table were shouting questions. She shouted louder than the others. “What?
You . . . you stole my memories?” She jerked away from Gregory. Horror opened a
hollow in her gut which betrayal quickly filled with bitterness. “Why?”
She had trusted him. All this time, he’d
been responsible for the void in her mind where her childhood memories should
have been.
Everyone at the table fell silent.
“I could not trust you because of where I
found you.”
“Yesterday you told me you rescued me from
my abductor, the Lady of Battles. You saved me from whatever she had planned.”
“I said I had rescued you from her, not
that she had abducted you. And I’m not even sure if I’ve thwarted her plans.”
“What are you talking about?”
“A gargoyle stays in his mother’s tree for
ten years before he is birthed fully mature. A dryad carries her daughters for
only three. When we were both eight, you called me from my mother’s tree early,
so I could rescue you from the Lady of Battles’ domain: the place where you had
been conceived, born, and lived for eight years.”
Conceived. Born. Not kidnapped. His word
shook her soul like felled trees crashing to the ground.
He continued, unaware he was trampling her
fragile sense of truth. “From the time of your birth, and perhaps while you
were still within your mother’s tree, you were shaped to become a tool for the
Lady of Battles. I escaped with you, and then, too weak to return home to the
Magic Realm, I came here.”
“Oh my God. You couldn’t trust me,” Lillian
said as she thought of something worse. “You were afraid of me, of what the
Lady could make me do.”
He didn’t answer her right away, and that
was enough to start a chill crawling up her spine.
“The Lady of Battles might have been using
you as bait to lure me to her. Once she had us both, she may have planned to
make us serve her by threatening the other. I don’t sense any evil upon you.
When first I found you, there was a dark taint, but here in this place, far
from the dark one’s influence, you may have managed to purify yourself.”
She heard the doubt in his voice. “But you
took my memories and still haven’t given them back. You’re afraid.”
“I can’t risk this world until I know for
certain what she did to you.”
Lillian grabbed the edge of the table to
stop her hands from trembling while she calmed the churning in her soul. It
made sense now. Gregory hadn’t betrayed her; he’d done what he could to protect
her—but not just her; everyone else, too. If she wasn’t such a fool, she’d have
seen that sooner. They were two halves of one soul—she could only imagine what
keeping this secret had cost Gregory. Placing her hand in his, she touched his
thoughts and projected her understanding and thanks, and then intertwined their
fingers. “How will you find out if I’m a threat, and how will you deal with it
if I am?”